Baruunbayan-Ulaan

After a 10 hour drive of around 400km from the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar, we reached the end of the road at a town called Arvayheer. From there we drove offroad across the desert, a further 200km to Camp.

The landscape in the Northwestern Gobi Desert is a bizarre mixture of very different terrain. The local territory which we were staying in; a sparse expanse of Nomad Ger settlements governed by a small town named Baruunbayan-Ulaan, has rocky cliffs, canyons, vast flat planes, sand dunes, shrubland, lakes, streams and the bordering mountain range, Bogd. [map]

The common elements are that it is very dry, and very cold. Most of the ground is covered with a sprinkling of blistered rocks that have cracked under the extremes of temperature. In the summer temperatures reach around 40 degrees, in the winter they drop as low as -30 degrees.

Local animals encountered are Mongolian dogs, sheep, goats, ibex, horses, wolves, vultures, eagles and camels.

QTVRs

Gobi Desert Panorama
Inside Ger

Photographs

Mercedes stuck in sand dunes (1,2)
Stone Age Drawing
Local Farmhouse
Gobi Desert (1,2,3,4)
Jeep Trail
Local Farmer (1,2)
Canyon
Camels
Ger (1,2,3,4)
Luya, Local Guide (1,2,3,4)